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These have been sitting in my freezer for quite some time and I’ve almost forgotten about them until it was time to clean my freezer. As you may know, Sanitarium now has a bunch of new products along with revamped (new packaging) old time favourites. I was a bit reluctant to try Thai Chilli & Lime Cakes as we didn’t like Cajun Schnitzels from the “New” product line very much (they were incredibly dry) but these goodies turned out to be quite moist and flavoursome. They may be quite processed but they’re also fortified with B12, iron and zinc.

I must admit, the title put me off all this time. I thought it was incredibly common, classless and inappropriate. However, at the end of the day, I’m a clinical nutritionist and I should be reading pretty much anything that is ever written on the subject of eating right. So I decided to read it regardless and here’s what I think:

The book has some solid information –an eye-opener for a lot people especially if they are new to the subject –and nutritional information is presented in an easy, digestible form that anyone can understand. Everything is well referenced which is very important especially if you want to be taken seriously within the field. However, the execution of it, the language the authors use is just foul. On the back cover they say they are your “smart-mothed girlfriends” I think what they should’ve said “foul-mouthed girlfriends” instead. Here’s an example from the book:

“Do not be lulled into a false sense of security that our government keeps food safe. News of the avian influenza epidemic came and went, but the disease is very real and can run rampant in poultry flocks. And according to a survey by the National Research Council, one chicken processing plant had 90 percent of its poultry contaminated with salmonellosis. Ninety fucking percent! Nasty.”

I actually have a very good tartare sauce recipe but you should see the list of ingredients. Sometimes, you just want someone else to do the work for you. When that time comes, Masterfoods Tartare Sauce is the right stuff for you. It is, believe it or not, vegan. Well, accidentally, not intentionally but you can’t tell it’s not working vegetarians and vegans.

I can hear you all going “Bubble of what?” so let me explain: I have a secret cooking ritual I perform from Monday till Friday, pretty much every week. I’m not going into details here because it’s personal but a part of it is shareable. OK, I put music on before I start cooking. My hair goes up, I have a glass of wine or Mojito if I have lime and fresh mint. And I sing along. I’m going to have to censor myself here; what follows is kind of private but cooking and creating part isn’t. If I come up with a new dish or successfully convert one, at that very moment, the song that is playing will definitely share the same name as my dish. No song at the time of creation? Then it’ll be the book that I’m reading at the time. Remember Sister of My Heart?

Who do I listen? Toto and individual work of Toto members. Because of that reason, so far I’ve been through some “Ever Changing Times”, I “Transition”ed for awhile, “Vertigo”ed myself at some stage and even faced “Protocol II” but mostly I was “Falling in Between”.

Back to the bubbles… The day I converted traditional Turkish koftas into these vegetarian ones, I was listening to Toto’s track Bottom of My Soul. With a difference though. While Steve Lukather was singing the song, the excited me in the kitchen hearing it all Bubble of my Soul instead of Bottom of My Soul! The name kind of stuck as you can imagine.

Recipe Notes:
• Kofta mixture below makes quite a lot of koftas and it would be advisable to freeze some of that. Just remember to line each layer with a sheet of plastic bag. I cut supermarket ones to size. It just works. You could also put them in spate zip lock bags.
• These koftas can be baked or grilled if you would like to cut down on oil. Arrange the koftas on an oven tray, brush them with oil and bake them for 20 minutes.

To serve:
Potato chips
Grilled peppers (banana chillies are the best and the most authentic)
Grilled tomatoesRed cabbage salad

To make the koftas:
• Mix together Sanitarium Nutmeat, brown rice, chopped onion, garlic, vegetable oil, kofte bahari, ground cumin, parsley, salt and pepper in a large mixing bowl. Knead the mixture for about 5 minutes. Cover the mixing bowl with cling film and place it in your fridge. The longer the better.
• Take the mixture out of the fridge. Get a little bowl of water ready. Dip your hands, one by one, into this bowl of water. Take a handful of the mixture and roll it into a ball first, then sightly flatten with your hand. I like mine slightly oval, by the way –as seen in the photo. Continue with this procedure until all the mixture is shaped up in the same way.

To fry the Koftas:
• Heat a reasonable amount of vegetable oil in a non-stick frying pan and fry the koftas on both sides and drain on paper towel.

I have been planning on making some sort of eggplant rolls for a very long time. I even found out how to tie up the rolls with spring onion but it seems like I had to wait until I had some left overs to put together this:

Method:
• Mash boiled potato with a fork or a potato masher. Chop 8 olives and add to mashed potato. Add half the parsley and mix well.
• Spread the eggplants over a large plate fill them up with potato mixture and roll.
• Secure each eggplant with an olive and arrange on a serving plate.
• Sprinkle the remainder of parsley and serve.

Our tastebuds are dancing with A-joy every time we go to Nilgiri’s; no exceptions! This has been the case since we discovered Nilgiri’s about 13 years ago. Soon after our discovery, we became friends with Ajoy Joshi (the owner of Nilgiri’s) and today, we are one of their regular customers. Of course, we introduced our friends to Nilgiri’s too. Here’s how you can measure up our feelings for you, friends: if you think we’re friends and we have never, ever taken you to Nilgiri’s then you’re not that close to us. But if we took you there and dumped you later on, well, it’s because we don’t love you anymore. You were a mistake and we happily moved on

I have always been fascinated by Indian culture, not just the cuisine. Especially, since my health situation had been saved by an Ayurvedic physician about 25 years ago, my fascination took a different turn and I even studied Ayurveda in the end –received my diploma in Advanced Ayurveda a few years ago. When it comes to Indian food though, we have been taken on an exquisite culinary journey through India at Nilgiri’s so far.

Nilgiri’s Food
I am one of those people who enjoys sophisticated alchemy of Indian cuisine. My problem with many Indian restaurants, though, is the fact that their food tastes like a mixture of every single herb and spice that is grown on the face of the earth which makes it almost impossible to identify any. Wait, I even have a name for it: spiced mud. At Nilgiri’s, however, every dish has its own star spice, a lead singer in a band so to speak. The star spice is then well-balanced by other spices (back-up singers) and well-orchestrated by the other ingredients carefully (like the rest of the band) and all of that is put together by the fantastic team of Nilgiri’s. And, this is the kind of music you can actually eat!

Gobi 65 (above)

There are many things about Nilgiri’s that sets it apart from other Indian restaurants. Usually you get a particular style of cooking or region depending on where the owner comes from and that style never changes. Neither does their menu. It’s because Ajoy was trained by six Indian master chefs who are experts in their own regional cuisine, Nilgiri’s Sunday Buffet menu changes every month and each time it is another exciting regional food that blows your mind. Moreover, Indian food you have at Nilgiri’s is quite contemporary yet all solid foundation of the cuisine is still preserved.

Aloo Gobhi (above)

The Restaurant
Nilgiri literally means Blue Mountain in many languages. This world class, award winning restaurant is located on Christie Street in St. Leonards. Upstairs, there is the actual restaurant and private function rooms. Downstairs, there is reception and tiffin room.

Malai Kofta (above)

Private Function Rooms
A friend of ours once told us that the current premise of Nilgiri’s used to be a Japanese restaurant and that’s how you may be able to explain some of those function rooms with a hole in the middle through which your feet go, in a dangling-in-the-air fashion. You take your shoes off before you enter and the table area has cushions on the floor. Each room is named after five elements in Ayurveda: boomi (earth), vayu (air), jal (water), agni (fire) and akash (space). Private function rooms are excellent for celebrations or get-togethers. We celebrate our birthdays with my husband as they are only a day apart.

Tiffin Room
Tiffin means snacks; quick and easy bites people eat between meals in Southern India. At Nilgiri’s, they serve thalis, biryanis, dosais and uttampams. Open during the day for lunches.

Ajoy Joshi
Ajoy Joshi is an award-winning master chef, an authority on Indian food, not just in Australia or in India but overseas as well. He also appeared on TV and radio as guest chef –including New Zealand television, yes, Dad told us. Apparently, Ajoy founded Nilgiri’s in the late 90s and is supported by his wife Meera –whose masala chai recipe is a killer –and his son Aniruddh –who is a pretty handsome fella. And of course, let’s not forget the fantastic team at Nilgiri’s.

Cooking Classes
I remember taking one of Ajoy’s vegetarian cooking classes with my husband long time ago. We learnt how to make our own paneer, aloo samosas, dal makhani, palak paneer –you make paneer first, of course. That was the beginning of my education in Indian cuisine. That was the first time I was introduced to not-so-mainstream Indian spices and how to source them in Sydney as well. Considering those were my early days in this country, Ajoy’s vegetarian cooking class was just the right thing for me. These days, we enrol Dad for a cooking class whenever he’s in Sydney. He has done one and I’m sure he wouldn’t say no to another one

Nilgiri’s is ever so changing, ever so evolving. Get yourself there so your education in Nilgiri’s food can begin too.

I usually don’t like abbreviations but I thought Salt n Pepper tofu looked kind of cute. What do you think?

Needless to say that we love this dish. Its simplicity and texture kind of speak to us. We even bought a deep fryer just to make salt and pepper tofu. Of course, I use it (the deep fryer) for other dishes too. There are a few places in the city where they do salt and pepper its justice like Mother Chu’s and Bodhi in the Park. Must admit, Mother Chu’s salt and pepper tofu is by far the best.

I have been experimenting with different types of tofu for some time now. Tried hard tofu, organic tofu and the list goes on… Finally we –I mean me and my husband –decided that something softer would be the right kind. Well, it happened to be silken tofu. So the recipe below is the latest. Enjoy Peoples!

Method:
• Place the tofu between two layers of paper towel over a small flat plate. Put a larger flat plate on top of it and place anything heavy on top of it –I used 2 packs of Bonsoy to do the job. Change the paper towel every now and then as it gets very wet and stops absorbing moisture. I did that three times by the way.
• Add salt and pepper to the flour and mix well. Get yourself a large flat plate and sprinkle it with this mixture.
• Gently mix the tofu pieces through the seasoned flour and set aside.
• Heat the oil to 180°C –most deep fryers these days come with temperature control. Lift the basket and place tofu in it, making sure they are not touching each other.
• Deep fry the tofu pieces until golden then remove from the oil and drain on absorbent paper.
• Place the tofu onto a serving plate and garnish with red chilli and scallions.
• Serve warm.

Just remember: Silken tofu is a delicate creature. Handle it carefully.

Method:
• Cook the rice in a rice cooker. Fluff it up and set aside to cool.
• Heat the oil in a wok and add peas and carrots. Stir-fry them for 3 or 4 minutes and add vegetarian ham. Continue to stir-fry them until the vegetables and ham are crispy.
• Gently stir in cooked rice and soy sauce and stir-fry for another 4 minutes.
• Just before you remove fried rice from heat, add shallots (spring onions) and sesame oil.

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Inspired by an incredibly old recipe from an incredibly old cookbook –I think it was my mum’s. Well, the recipe evolved over time in my kitchen but it still must be one of the first non-standard pilaf I have ever cooked in my life. I think the original recipe uses some sort of liver but the recipe I used for the very first time was a vegetarian version. While I was tidying up my recipe archives I found it sitting somewhere, totally neglected. We love it and I hope you like it too. Enjoy Peoples

Method:
• Heat the margarine in a shallow, heavy-based pan over a medium heat and stir in the rice, grated carrot, pistachio nuts and dried currants. Fry until the rice is opaque and carrots are soft. Add the water and salt.
• Bring to the boil, then cover, reduce the heat to a bare minimum and leave to simmer for 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, fluff it up and leave it covered for 5 minutes with a piece of paper towel between the pot and its lid.
• Finally taste and adjust the seasoning. Spoon onto serving dishes and sprinkle with parsley and black pepper. Serve warm as a side dish.

Pilaki is a generic term for a certain group of dishes –pilaki is plaki in Greek, by the way. Beans –either borlotti or cannellini –are cooked with onion, potato, carrot, sometimes tomato or tomato paste (in some cases both), garlic and olive oil. Pilakis are classified as mezze in Turkish cuisine and because of that, they are always served cold. Here’s the recipe:

Method:
• Heat the oil in a large pot. Add the onions, carrots, potatoes and 3 tablespoon of water. Cook until all the vegetables are soft, stirring continuously.
• Add crushed garlic, beans, sugar, salt and 2 cups of water. Give it a good stir without mushing the beans and turn down the heat.
• Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes over low heat.
• Remove from the heat and cool. Transfer onto a serving platter. Garnish with parsley and lemon slices and serve.
• Afiyet olsun Peoples!